You will be a part of the illustrious order. Bearers’ of the swords of Old Equestria’s Justice, shields against the chaos of the wastes, defenders of our glorious ideals, a light firing through the skies, burning away all darkness. You are the spear of our might and you will serve your kind, the citizens of our grand nation. You will live for your brothers and sisters, fight for them, kill for them, and, when you’ve nothing left to give, you will die for them… until there are no enemies, only peace.

1. A Cure For Some Of What Ails You

“… most importantly, stay happy.”

That… was a really fucking weird dream. Echoes of the voice faded from my mind as the soft comforting layers of sleep I’d been blanketed in deserted me one by traitorous, treacherous one. Damn it. Why did I have to wake up? I was just fine listening to the strangely hypnotic, highly patriotic, wonderfully, I almost wanted to say… quixotic… (That’s a word right? Right? Am I using it correctly, oh well, who cares.) spiel that accompanied my slumber. Accompanied… accompanied. I chuckled as I opened my eyes. Boy did they want to stay closed though, and even with them open I couldn’t see shit anyways. Accompanied looked like accordions. Tiny ponies playing silly musical instruments danced around in my head, amusing… and further proof that I was one horseshoe short of a set. At least it was better than the whole (wait, the whole thing wasn’t there, only part of it was, that was the problem… huh?) ‘why is part of my head missing’ and the only slightly less important (not sure if my priorities were straight on this one) question of ‘where did the rest of my head go?’ Stupid head, running off, getting into trouble without me… probably drinking my whiskey too. That bitch… when I found her I was gonna… start making more sense and less crazy? Eh, probably not.

Indistinct (did that mean they were all dead or was I confusing my words again?) shapes and colors resolved themselves into slightly less extinct (one of those words was right, I just couldn’t be certain which) shapes and colors. I tried to move and found that I couldn’t. Fantastic. Something was holding me down, binding me, and I didn’t even have a safe word to use. What? If the thoughts in my poor partially present head confused me then I didn’t even want to know what other ponies would think should they become privy to them. Heheh… privy. And, was it me or was it really dark wherever I was? Thinking of which, where in the hay was I? Searching for an answer, searching… I’d take D for ‘don’t know’ and… wait a second, what had happened to answer C?

Well, I could explain the darkness at any rate (so long as this multiple choice option went better than the last one, what with the jerk ass ghoul). One, it was nighttime, a really eerily dark night. Two, I was in a room with the lights off, probably about to be surprised by a big buck in a leather and rubber gimp suit. Three, I’d been eaten by something very large, a dragon or maybe a hydra… a hydragon, horrible amalgam of reptilian beasts, master of the wastes, horror, devourer of zebra and pony alike.

Did ponies get awards for imagining weird shit? Cause if they did, I’m guessing I’d take first prize every year. I’d give option three the slimmest chances… again. It didn’t feel like I was being digested, but then, I couldn’t remember ever being eaten by a monster before and finding out for sure. Option one could probably be crossed off the list as well, seeing as how I couldn’t see clouds (a staple of the wastelands because… there were clouds all over because… my head started hurting and I gave up on remembering), stars or the moon. Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner and his name is option 2, a room. Well, here goes nothing.

“Hello?” I asked. There was no response but my voice sounded better than it had before, on the hillside, so somepony must have been taking care of me, or maybe it was a wartime medical robot whose programming had gone bonkers and was going to take my skin as soon as I got better because it thought it should be a real pony. Okay, that one was weird, even for me. Still nothing back, an empty room then? “He-ell-oo-oo.” I tried a second time and heard, after delay of a few seconds, movement, the shuffling of hooves. So, a pony then… or one of those time traveling ninja assassin zebras. Great, just what I needed: an over active imagination, the inability to move and zebra robots trying to eliminate me before I could start a future resistance movement against them. “Who’s there?” I hoped whoever it was would identify themselves… and not end up being that creepy (and now hopefully dead) zombie… or the annoying (and now hopefully bereft of alcohol) stallion with the sunglasses.

“Mistle.” Came the gruff, bordering on grumpy reply, a door opened somewhere nearby but most of the darkness remained, lightening only enough to throw up the shadowy outline of an equine form. Oh, what the hell? Was I in some kind of Nightmare Moon dream world? “Now what’s all this fuss about?” The voice was that of an elderly buck, which I would totally have known (no creepy dream killers to be found here, no sir) even if he hadn’t just then illuminated the room by turning on two centuries old lamps with a gentle bit of unicorn magic.

“You’re a missile?” I asked, per… purple… flexed… dum de dum… still can’t get my words right. Perplexed, there we go. Now why hadn’t I just thought of confused instead, or befuddled. Befuddled makes me think of delicious fudge based desserts (not that I could remember eating anything fitting that description) and it made me think of rain puddles in spring, jumping up and down in them, a happy filly. Where the hell did that come from? Something was seriously wrong with my memory… memories. A mare and her memories. ‘Don’t make me go in there and sort you out.’ I told my brain… and noticed the not a type of explosive munitions pony staring at me in concern and… befuddlement. Goddesses, I hope I hadn’t just said any of that out loud.

“It’s… uh… Mistle, as in ‘Mistletoe’ yeh know, the plant.” The old buck corrected me, clearing his throat. With my eyes rapidly adjusting to the comparative brightness of my surroundings I could see what he looked like more clearly. He was wearing a white shirt (I think, the thing was so faded and stained it was hard to tell) and had green, military issue fatigues with a multitude of pockets over his flanks, under that the pony had a yellow coat, what looked to have been a vibrant lemon in his youth but was now faded to the color of… yeah, not thinking about that, having no idea how long it had been since I’d gone to the bathroom I had no desire to awaken the urge to relieve myself… too late… damn it. His mane, what little was left of it (and there was very little left of it) was gray with a few strands of orange and curled around his horn. The fellow must have been a big buck in his youth, but now he was stooped, thinning at the limbs but paunchy at the gut and wrinkled, though his pale, watery blue eyes were giving me one heck of a stern look before he added with a dash of vinegar, “quit yer’ starin’ little filly, I ain’t a ghoul and I ain’t senile, just old.”

“Okay.” I answered him at last, slightly embarrassed over staring and not sure why he was planted here or what it had to do with toes. Ponies didn’t even have toes, silly old coot. I looked around the room syrup… petition… ishously… serend… just forget it. I looked around the room. It was small, metal and woefully under decorated. Rust crept along the corners and had eaten into the walls in a few places. There was a single stool (that had seen better days and was probably quite uncomfortable by the look of things) and a cot, which I was on… and tied down to. Somepony was kinky… or had taken me prisoner. Please let it be the first one. I looked at the buck again. Please let it be the second one. There was more in there but I either couldn’t see it from where I was or I hadn’t yet gained back the ability to focus hard enough to identify it. And now for the obligatory questions that may have seemed odd but were definitely important.

“You’re not going to eat me are you?” I asked the strange old buck, looking about the room again, my eyes finally fully adjusted to the lamp light, taking in the cot I’d been laid on (old, heavily used, definitely repaired more than once and eye rollingly, horrendously olive green, military issue then, pre-war) the (scratchy but warm, even if it had a few holes in it) blanket over my flanks, a heap of boxes, a small metal table covered with heavily used medical accoo… trees… a cute… mints… la, la, la, you’re really asking for it brain… medical tools (there, good enough) that I could only see after turning my head as far as possible to the left, a few random knick knacks in the corners and one makeshift door leading out to what must have been the rest of the… was I in a train? Did this mean I had to pay the conductor? Not sure why anypony would give money to a piece of electronics but oh well.

“Sorry.” He answered. I could almost feel the dust in his voice and finally noticed he had something of an accent and it made me think of apples. “Yer not my type.” Mistletoe finished with a one sided grin that stretched the wrinkles out of his muzzle. So he ate other ponies but not me, well that was creepy, if a relief and oh… I get it. The wheels turn slowly. I made sure not to blush (I did, just the tiniest, teensiest bit, kind of hard to stop it from being noticeable when your coat’s as white as fresh snow. Now there was something straight out of the histories. Where did I know about snow from? Not important, he didn’t like me, well, that was a bit rude. I reached for whiskey that wasn’t there and, disappointed, decided I would pout. After all it was kind of insulting to think that an old codger wouldn’t find a fit young mare to be his type. I wasn’t ugly, was I? Quick, somepony find me a mirror and… again, focus on the important things.

“And, you’re not a zebra robot, sent from the future to assassinate me?” I asked further, delighted by him going half cross eyed at the suggestion. “And you’re not going to don leathers, tie me up (I was already tied up, come to remember, in medical restraints it seemed) and bring out torture devices are you?” My words tumbled out one after another and the old buck just looked at me long and hard then burst out in grandfatherly laughs.

“Nope.” He said. “Not a zebra come to kill yeh, and I’m on shift right now, so no time for hoofcuffs and chains.” The buck’s horn flared faintly. A cigarette and lighter floated out of one of his many pockets, bobbing up and down a little in his levitation field. He lit the cigarette and looked at me intently. “So, what’s yer name?” Oh boy. Good question. The answer was…

“I… don’t know.” I told him and it was Celestia’s honest truth. I had no idea of what my name was, where I was born, who my parents were or how in the hay I’d ended up on a rocky little hill above a town named Appleloosa.

“Well, nothin’ to identify yeh from the bardin’ yeh were wearin’ Stable-Tec knock offs if ever I-”

“How does everypony know that my barding wasn’t really made by Stable-Tec? I don’t know that it wasn’t made by them, heck, I can barely even remember what a Stable is.” I interrupted him and was immediately glad there wasn’t a fire at hoof for him to roll me into… as I eyed the lamps warily.

“There’s a few small thin’s if yeh look close enough. The stitchin’ and the design, number’s too high as well, far as these old bones know there never was a Stable 0349. That and it says Fable-Tec inside the collar.” He answered dryly, leaving me with more questions. What was Fable-Tec, why did I have their barding, hell, why would anypony even waste the time making Stable-Tec knock offs for that matter? The buck coughed and spat a glob of phlegm into one of the corners. How… charming? I thought acidly.

“Anyway, welcome back to the world of the livin’, dumplin’ glad to see yeh ain’t brain dead.” Gee thanks, mister. I guess bedside manner wasn’t high on his priorities. And the brain dead part was yet to be determined, I figured, pending the outcome of the sold out prizefight between me and my mind.

“Yeah, me too.” I told him with a forced smile. “Now don’t be offended but where the fuck am I and what the fuck’s going on?” I was forcing myself to smile still, though it was more of a grimace now. Mistletoe gave a chuckle that dissolved into a sigh.

“Yer in my train car… clinic… doctor’s office, which I share with a lovely but inattentive youn’ filly who calls herself a nurse. Candi, get yer tiny shiny white plot in here! Patient’s awake ‘n I’m too tired and ornery to do all this shit by myself!” His voice rose to a yell and I did a double take. For a geezer he still had quite a set of pipes on him. “Sleep through balefire that one and dreamin’ of strappin’ young stallions all the while.” Mistletoe shook his head, cigarette smoke swirling in its bald wrinkled wake. “Now, anyway, where was I?” He asked, sounding a little confused. Also, was he yelling for a pony or a sugary snack? And lastly, was he so sure about the whole not senile part?

“You were telling me where I am and what’s going on.” I said helpfully, testing my restraints, no, still not budging. “And why you’ve got me tied down.” I added as an afterthought. I strained against the straps but they wouldn’t give. What happened to me being a steam powered badass pony?

“No, now I believe I was tellin’ yeh where the ‘fuck’ yeh are and what the ‘fuck’ is goin’ that about right?” The old buck asked. I could hear the sound of a very groggy pony moving about somewhere else in the train car. “Quite a mouth on yeh, that’s fer sure. My train car… said that already… in New Appleloosa, awful name fer a town (I quite agreed with him, nodding my head enthusiastically even if he didn’t seem to notice) in the good old land of Equestria… or what’s left of it at any rate.” He stopped speaking; taking a drag from the cigarette his magic was still holding and bringing up a forehoof to rub the underside of his chin. “Yer in them restraints cause yeh were causing one hell of a ruckus when we tried to get yer bardin’ off, quite a surprise seein’ them win’s a yers fer the first time. Also, took three stron’ bucks as otherwise work the train to keep yeh down. I was afraid yeh’d do even more hurt to yerself, so, restraints.”

“Oh.” I said, thinking over his answer. Maybe I still was a steam powered badass pony but my bindings were made of some sort of super strong metal from beyond the stars that kept me from using my full powers. Yep, that’s what I was going with.

“Before yeh ask, the answer’s no, I ain’t lettin’ yeh out of them straps until I know I can trust yeh not to go griffin shit crazy again.” The old buck rubbed at heavy eyelids, puffy from age. “Yeh showed up outside the gates about three days back now, havin’ taken almost every drug known to ponykind. I’ve been flushing yer system ever since, not sure if yeh got addicted or not, but if yeh feel strange cravin’s fer any of that junk just let me know and I’ll keep yeh away from it.” He coughed lightly. “Candi, when I die, which’ll be soon with the way yeh look after things, the only help yeh’ll get in running this place’ll be from my disapprovin’ ghost!” The old buck sucked in a breath before continuing. “Tellin’ yeh yer not doin’ right by yer patients and jumpin’ out yellin’ boo every time yeh try to take a bath, or get all cozy with one of them caravan guards!” Mistletoe yelled again and I was quite certain I heard a pony squeal and jump so high their head hit the ceiling. Speaking of heads…

“My head?” I asked him, wishing I could reach out a wing (they were folded up under me) and take the doctor’s cigarette from him.

“And the rest of yeh.” He said seriously as an adolescent mare entered my room, precariously balancing a doctor’s bag and a tray of food. I hoped it was for me, I was feeling hungry enough to chew the ass off a week dead Brahmin. I also had to pee, really badly, not yet oops the mare had an accident but getting there. I tried to cross my back legs to keep the feeling away but I was strapped down. Great. I decided to keep my mind on other things and looked at the filly. And, as it turned out, she was a sugary looking snack as well as a pony, compact but for legs that didn’t seem to end, with a bright white coat, a soft pink mane and eyes the color of ocean waves in summer, set in an adorable little face. If I was a few seasons younger, and still a filly fooler like in my school days I’d… ahem, let’s not go there, though the notion that I had schooling was a strange contrast with my inability to arty-que-late myself while talking… or thinking.

“Half yer ribs were broken, multiple compound fractures to yer left fore leg.” The doctor said as he pulled various (a little bit scary) medical instruments (a few of which looked like sexual torture devices… no matter what he said) and began examining me. “Fracture to yer right hind leg, so bad yeh could see the bone through yer coat, made a few ponies round about lose their breakfast.” He gave Candi, who was standing quietly in the corner watching him, a playful grin before poking and prodding me anew. “Burns, deep muscle bruising, contusions, shallow lacerations, gunshot and stab wounds just about everywhere.” He wacked my stomach with a hoof, and, satisfied by the ‘oomph’ sound I made went back to his grocery list of what I’d somehow gone through. “To tell the truth, yer body was barely holdin’ together. Them drugs might of just kept yeh alive lon’ enough to fall head over ass outside our rusty gates.” Head over ass, not the way I liked to present myself… most of the time.

“My head?” I asked again, grunting, trying to focus on the pretty little pony in the corner and not on the ancient buck pressing on my ribs.

“Ah, the most intriguin’ of yer many various injuries.” Mistletoe replied as Candi crept forward to better hear what was being said. “It took me a while to figure out just what in the blue buck happened there.” He held my muzzle in his hooves, looking back and forth, between my eyes. I stared back at him, unblinking, a teeny bit concerned he might be trying to hypnotize me. “Somepony must’ve taken a great dislikin’ to yeh.”

“Why would anypony not like me?” I questioned, giving another winning smile, showing my teeth, hoping they sparkled… and were still there.

“Yeh were shot in the head, dumplin’ by something fearfully powerful.” Mistletoe said nonchalantly, putting a hoof under my chin and pushing up, closing my mouth and ending my smile.

“Why would somepony want to shoot me in the head?” I asked the doctor, and I mean, I really wanted to know what I had done to deserve that kind of treatment, since I couldn’t actually remember.

“You don’t know?” The filly, Candi, asked me right back, in a voice sweet as honey and sultry as whiskey with a bar of sunlight shining through its bottle. Reconsidering sexual orientation in three… two… one…

“No.” I told her quietly, wondering if the story of the strange Pegasus mare with the hole in her head had been keeping the town gossips abuzz since my (very timely it seems) arrival. “I can’t remember.” The doctor made a sound that was part throat and part nose but it sounded halfway between an annoyed harrumph and a drawn out fart.

“I figured that might be the case.” Mistletoe stepped away from me and dropped down onto his haunches. “Yer missing a few pieces up there, even with the best I could do to stitch yeh back together, yer probably sufferin’ from retrograde amnesia.

“There’s an old school style amoeba in my brain?” I asked, terrified that it was worming its way through my head as we spoke, turning me into a living dead pony with a taste for the flesh of my own kind. “I’m gonna become a zombie?” The buck looked at me like I was crazy, drew out a flashlight and checked my pupils.

“Hmmm… maybe yeh’ve got more brain damage than I originally believed.” He said as though considering whether to have apples or carrots for lunch. Any amount was too much I thought back. “No, there’s no microscopic critters floatin’ around in there turnin’ yeh into a zombie… might explain the stupid comments and questions were it true.” What stupid comments and questions? Everything I’d said was valid and of leggy… intimate… ledge it… legitimate (goddesses damn it) importance to my situation. Nopony wants assassins on their tail, cannibals or the whole bondage torture thing… unless it was with the right buck… or mare.

“You have memory damage.” Candi said with a frightening amount of earnest enthusiasm, almost bouncing up and down. This must be a real treat for her to see and learn about first hoof. Attraction to her… dropping… slightly.

“Yep.” The doc said casually. “Course, whatever caused it, the shot that nudged that poor noggin of yers, came from somethin’ I’ve never seen before.”

“Was it aliens?” I asked. Candi gasped, put her front hooves over her eyes and promptly fell right over. Awww… attraction rising again.

“No it was not aliens!” The old buck dismissed my theory with no small amount of obvious irritation. “Some kind of firearm, zebra make maybe, highly advanced, not a true energy or disintegration weapon but not a regular, good old fashioned bullet throwin’ kinetic piece either, probably pre-war tech.” Zebras huh? I was right; they’d sent assassins after me from the future, that’d collected weapons from the past, to kill me in the present. Now that I’d thought it out, the idea seemed just a tad bit ridiculous.

“I do know one thin’ fer sure now. It’s a damn miracle that yer talkin’ to me and not droolin’ or rollin’ the eyes like our resident ghoul.” He chuckled for what must have been the fiftieth time in the past ten minutes, starting to get on my nerves. “Wonder what she’ll make of yeh? And hell, it’s a damn miracle that yer alive at all. Now, Candi, go yonder and grab our illustrious mayor.” Illustrious, that word was familiar. “I know he wants to talk to our remarkable mare… and no dawdlin’ yeh cotton headed fancy dreamin’ little filly!” Candi jumped again, though she didn’t strike the ceiling this time, and scurried out as if a hellhound had gotten her scent. I heard the door to what must have been the outside of the train car thrown open.

“Now that the little talker is gone, probably tellin’ half the town about what’s goin’ on before she even looks for Railright, there was somethin’ else I wanted to talk to yeh about.” The doc said quietly and by the look on his face I knew it wasn’t good news. Awesome, everyday and in every way things were getting better and better.

“I know yeh don’t remember… or least, yeh say yeh don’t remember,” he began… wait was he calling me a liar? “A pony’s business is their own, and if yeh don’t want to tell me anythin’ that’s yer right.” Mistletoe used magic to put out his cigarette on an exceptionally full ashtray resting on the metal floor near the side of cot. Wow, he must have been in here a lot, smoking like a chimney from one of old Equestria’s wartime factories… or I’d been smoking in my sleep. Was I a sleep smoker? The doc lit up another cigarette before speaking again and I used the delay to get a few words in.

“Do you mind?” I asked, looking from him to his cigarette.

“As a matter of fact, I do.” The buck answered, scowling at me. “Tryin’ to tell me not to smoke in my own clinic.” He muttered in disbelief.

“No, do you mind if I get one?” I completed. The doctor eyed me for a few seconds, maybe trying to figure out if I was working some kind of angle. Because, yes, it would be so effective to burn down his metal train car home while I was tied to a cot and couldn’t escape. Maybe I could use the cigarette to burn through the straps, or, more likely, I’d just smoke it instead.

“Alright, so lon’ as yeh give me yer word yer not gonna go all shit fit on me and try to fly outta here or buck me upside the head.” Mistletoe stated without an ounce of humor. I must admit, the thought had crossed my mind once or twice (a minute) since waking up. This place made me nervous, and being tied up when anything could happen was making it even worse. And I really, really had to pee.

“Cross my wings and hope to fly.” I told him as innocently as possible. The doctor squinted at me, trying to divine any falsehood in my words. He gave up, shrugged and magically unlocked the restraints on my right foreleg, allowing me to pull free a wing. It felt… weak, but good, like I hadn’t used it in forever and was just now discovering it again.

“Thanks.” I said as he lit another cigarette and floated it to me. Boy, I wish I had magic. It seemed to make things so much easier, but then I wouldn’t have wings, couldn’t fly… unless I was an Alicorn… but that would make me almost two hundred years dead and since I wasn’t dead (hooves crossed, if more than one of them had been free), I guess I would be bereft of the ability to be lazy by magic. Wait a Goddess damned minute, the Alicorns were dead? That was an unpleasant thought. I just hoped it wasn’t true. I shook my head to clear the thoughts of Luna and Celestia as nothing more than heaps of anonymous bones, lying somewhere, unknown and unmourned in the vast Equestrian wastes. Damn horn heads I cursed silently, picking up the previous train of thought, curling the end of my wing around the cigarette and bringing it to my muzzle. It took a lot of effort to take hold, just how long had it been since I’d flown or used my wings?

“As I was sayin’ afore,” the buck continued. “Whether yeh remember or not, yeh need to be careful, more careful I should say.” He looked me over again. “It weren’t only the injuries I mentioned already; those were just the recent ones. You’ve got half healed wounds all over the damn place, datin’ back months I’d guess. Where ever yeh’ve been, whatever yeh’ve been doin’ it’s been puttin’ one hell of a strain on yer body.” He blew out some smoke. “Yer too youn’ to go off killin’ yerself, and if yeh keep at whatever it was that landed yeh in all this trouble… yeh’ll die.” His eyes looked sad. And there was a wake up call if I’d ever gotten one. Now paging… whatever my name was… listen to your medical health professional. “And I hate wastin’ my supplies almost as much as I hate wastin’ my cigarettes. So do yerself a favor and take it easy fer a while.”

Don’t go running… flying off and get myself killed. Don’t tangle with beasties you can’t handle. Don’t waste the sour old doctor’s smokes. Got it. It seemed like reasonable advice, if boring. I was more just wondering about what in the hay had happened over the last few months that I couldn’t remember. Why was I covered in injuries? Why had I fallen when I could fly? Why was the doctor staring at me like that again? Why would somepony build a town called Appleloosa… twice? What had happened to the mysterious stallion chasing that ghoul? Why did I have to pee so badly?

“That it?” I asked the doctor, not knowing exactly what else he could tell me was wrong. Maybe that I had taint or was irradiated to the point of glowing, wouldn’t be a stretch from all the crap I’d somehow gone through and couldn’t even recall. Dumb brain, making my head hurt when I tried to remember things.

“Pretty much.” Mistletoe answered. “Except, well, yer Cutie Mark and…” Oh long dead goddesses (wait… long dead? Arrgh, not going through this again) of ponykind. What was wrong with my Cutie Mark? Had it been burned off, shot off, bitten off?

“What’s wrong with it? What happened to it? Where did it go? I swear if that no good hussy Cutie Mark of mine ran off with my brain I’ll…” I twisted in my restraints, free wing fluttering uselessly, cot rocking under me and… my Cutie Mark was still there it just… well… it just… I had no idea what in the hell it was. It looked like some kind of balancing measuring scale thingy.

“Calm down. Calm down!” The doctor ordered as I looked in breathless confusion at the mark on my flanks. I stopped moving and tried taking deep breaths. What kind of game was he pulling here; telling me something was wrong with my Cutie Mark, getting me all worked up and… seriously, what the hell was that thing on my flank?

“What is it?” I asked. Was I supposed to be some kind of magical bean counter, a weigh-er and purveyor of trading goods, an anal retentive supply clerk?

“Scales, Dumplin’, they’re scales.” The buck answered. I heard the train car’s door open again as I tried to figure out what the weird ass shape on my… ass had to do with reptiles and fish, or musical notes.

“So I’m supposed to be a sea pony?” I questioned, “or some sort of musician?” The look he gave me left no doubt as to what he thought my problem was: brain damage. There were voices from somewhere else in the train car. I looked as closely as possible at my flank. One hanging part held bullets and what looked like a sword, the other had some kind of branch or wreath and a pigeon I guess, taking wing.

“They’re the scales of Justice.” He clarified dourly. Why did he sound like he was talking to a child? Was I being insulted here, again? There were definitely ponies outside of my little sick room but they weren’t coming in. Maybe they knew better than to interrupt the doctor… or were afraid of his sour lemony oldness.

“Sooooo… justice is a lizard that looks like a device to weigh drugs.” I finished, even more lost than when we’d began.

“No! Yeh apple buckin’ idiot.” The buck clarified. “Justice, weighin’ the merits of a case, right and wron’, truth and fairness, impartiality and all that. It’s old Equestrian stuff.” He carried on. “Only reason I know is cause I was born in a Stable out west, had a good education on the institutions of a bygone era, not that important anymore, really, except fer learnin’ how to take care of folks that’ve been hurt.”

So my Cutie Mark was some kind of archaic (look at my fancy words) idea about right and wrong, a representation of justice. Huh, well, I didn’t feel particularly just at the moment, laying in my cot, smoking a cigarette. I felt, weak, thirsty, hungry and I needed to find the little filly’s room with a vengeance. Hopefully, the doctor was a rare buck (being Stable bred) that he’d know the meaning of the mark. Cause if it was common knowledge it would be bad (might explain why I was in such poor condition coming in though). Any pony walking around the wastes with a dumbass symbol of justice on their flank was in for a whole heaping helping of hurting. That kind of picture was nothing more than a target in my opinion. I just wish I’d found I had a really cool Cutie Mark… like a bullet going through a skull, lightning bolts from a cloud, a grim reaper pony with a scythe or crossed swords with blood splatters. Any of those would be acceptable. This scale was boring… and potentially hazardous to my health.

“Just unusual fer a pony to have that as their Cutie Mark, in my opinion.” He cleared his throat and floated away my nub of a cigarette to join his in the overstuffed ashtray. “Course, that tattoo yeh’ve got on yer left shoulder is mighty interestin’ as well.” Tattoo on my left shoulder? What tattoo on my left shoulder. I twisted my head around, straining my neck and he was right. There was a tattoo on my left shoulder, above my foreleg. That was… unexpected? New? Strange? In a time when everything that was happening to me was strange this really didn’t stand out as the weirdest thing. Had I gotten drunk in Dise and decided to get inked or been part of a gang running out of The Hoof? Upon closer inspection, the tattoo was a winged sword, point downward, with a banner draped over the cross bars and hilt. See, now this was cool. Why couldn’t the tattoo be my Cutie Mark? Stupid rotten lousy luck. There was some kind of writing on the banner. Sin equan on? Si nequ anon? I definitely wasn’t reading it right because it just looked like it was one step up from griffin scratch gibberish to me.

“What does the weird writing mean?” I asked the doctor, worried that it might say shoot me or kill this pony in strange-fucking-ese. “I wasn’t abducted by aliens, was I?” The thought ran rampant in my head. Evil aliens with shiny skin and big eyes probing me… “You don’t think they strapped me to a big table and put a big metal probe up my-”

“No.” Mistletoe cut me off with his answer… right about the same time he slapped me across the muzzle with one of his hooves. Ow. “There’s no such thin’s as aliens. The only probe that went up yer backside, far as I know, was the thermometer that Candi used to take yer temperature.” Candi stuck something up my butt? Well, that was… strange. Did she at least buy me some sugar apple bombs and a six pack of Buckweiser first? “I got no idea what it means and yeh can come in now Railright, our guest’s awake and ready to chew yer ear off, sadly most of what she says is nonsense.” Nonsense?

“Hey!” I said loudly, offended. Just because the likelihood of alien abduction was slim didn’t mean it couldn’t happen, and I indeed was probed… by a hot little filly (maybe we could go to a bar later) so… I decided to stop being crazy, for the moment at least, that I could hear this Railright buck talk.

“Howdy.” The stallion in question said, entering the room and doffing his cowpony hat to show off a thick dark mane that was rather fetching. Well hello tall dark (gray) and handsome, I thankfully didn’t say the words out loud, fidgeting over the fact that I was meeting (for the second time I guessed) this nice looking fellow and really had to pee. He still had the duster and shiny star he’d been wearing when I’d shown up at his gates. Well, maybe now we could introduce ourselves better.

“Don’t take too long mayor.” The doctor cautioned. “Candi’s gotta feed her and she needs rest, probably be in that bed all week an-”

“All week?” I whined. “But doc I don’t th-”

“And then some.” He finished with a wrinkle stretching grin. “Oh and Candi, when these two youn’ins are done gabbin’ but before yeh feed her, get a bed pan for our patient. I think she needs to urinate.” By all the oaths of ponykind I was gonna kill that bald old son of a mule. I don’t think I’d ever been so embarrassed. And so, with all thoughts of bucking to help my recuperation gone, I spent the next fifteen minutes or so telling Railright (who blushed more than I did at the doctor’s words) what I knew about myself (nothing), what I knew about how I came to his town (very little) and explaining what my intentions were once they took the restraints off and let me out of my cot (none except to find a big bottle of alcohol and get drunk). Then Doc Mistletoe kicked the mayor out of the room so that Candi could put me on a bed pan. Yeah, that last bit of embarrassment I talked about, nothing compared to me peeing into what amounted to little more than a bucket while a fine looking filly stood there and waited for me to finish. It took a long time. Like I said, I really needed to go.

The next week was spent (primarily) in that little room, the next very, very, very boring long week. There was no booze to be had (excepting small amounts of some kind of sweet apple something that Candi was able to sneak me, which probably kept me alive more than the bland mushy meals they were giving as susta… nancy… tenants… sustenance, there we are). The doctor’s charity when it came to cigarettes quickly ran out (after I’d gone through two of his packs in as many days) and Candi, it seemed, was interested in bucks, not other mares, my occasional (many) suggestions of a threesome with the stallion of her choice elicited nothing more than giggles from her. So, with pretty much nothing to drink, nopony to do and nowhere to go I rested (which did feel kind of good) and got prodded several times a day by the doctor (not so good) or Candi (better). Railright came back for the first four days to ask additional questions, but soon grew tired of it as I had no answers to give, not even my own name. How pathetic was that? I couldn’t give him a simple name, my name… not because I didn’t want to but because I couldn’t fucking remember it. The ones I came up with (Steam Power, Badass, The Lone Gunmare, Whiskey Rose, War Sword and Sinequanon) did not meet with the Doc’s approval (he refused to call me by any of them) and Candi ended up rolling on the floor laughing every time I tried to get her to say one. It frustrated me, but I did enjoy watching my nurse roll around on her back. Mentally stimulating… yes… very… mentally stimulating.

Those three ponies (and after the mayor stopped coming the number was down to two) were my only visitors (grumpy old Mistletoe insisting that I needed rest more than I did company or conjugal visits, usually while sticking a thermometer where Celestia never shined. He wouldn’t let me leave the train car either, worried that I would run away (very unlikely), wander off because I’d seen something shiny in the distance (slightly less unlikely), get into a fight with another pony (meh, I’d give fifty-fifty odds on that one), set back my recovery by knocking horseshoes with some strong buck or cute mare (rather more likely) or drown myself (not literally) in whiskey (yeah, not asking for odds on that one, let’s just say very, very likely) after realizing that I’d gotten a hold of half a bottle of his bourbon (hooray for wings) that he’d carelessly left near me.

It wasn’t until day five that I was allowed out of my restraints. The doctor was still worried I’d flip out and start kicking ponies or something. I didn’t, except I may have misbehaved a little when he took away the bourbon (though I was still partially tied up at the time), and again when I found out that all the alcohol he had in the train car was kept in a locked cabinet. Sledgehammers I found are stupid heavy and not a good thing to use when your muscles are supposed to be healing. At least now I could use the bucket on my own (yay), even if there were a few… accidents, especially soon after the bourbon incident. Once every hour (that I was awake) either the doc or his nurse would take me around the train car, helping to support me as I walked and pointing various things out in the hopes that it would improve or maybe even miraculously jog my memory. It didn’t work. My attempts to convince Candi to let me play doctor with her were fun though, if regrettably fruitless. Other things happened, of varying importance. Me finding out what color my mane was (black) and that the doc had partially shorn it for my surgery (horror). Seeing what color my eyes were (dark blue), chasing Candi around (not what you think) and getting caught by Mistletoe with my hooves… well… uhm… ahem… (exactly what you think). But, those are things for another time.

On the eighth day since my first reawakening, Doc Mistletoe, the cantankerous old sawbones who called himself a pony, reluctantly agreed that I could go outside of the train car, so long as Candi remained with me. You’d be surprised but I didn’t find the arrangements objectionable in the slightest. I was eager to see the sky, even if I knew it was cloudy and I wanted to stretch my wings and get them working again. Mistletoe had taken a look at them and told me they’d begun to atrophy from lack of use. How a Pegasus could go long enough without using their wings that the muscles in them would start to go, I had no idea. It was just another mystery that I had no way to solve.

“Ready?” Candi asked me as we stood before the door that led outside. I was excited, which might explain why I’d gone to the bucket so many times in the half hour leading up to our excursion.

“Ready.” I answered, giving her a giddy grin with a hint of lechery. Hey, a girl can dream can’t she?

“Now, we’re gonna take it easy and go slow. I’ll show you around the town, introduce you to some folks, like Miss Ditzy, and then, since Doc’s takin’ one of his naps (I was very familiar with them by now, the buck liked them often and snored like thunder), we can go over to the bar, best place in town, and get some drinks.” Candi said happily, beaming, all enthusiasm and long legs. Well gee, how could I say no to that?

*Experience gained: 25% to level 2*

Chapter 3. No Caps, No Colts, No Custom… coming soon…

Author's Note

Much and many thanks to Demichev, who pays more attention and is more on the ball with this story than I am... and he noticed that I wrote 'color' instead of 'collar' ... and I couldn't even find it on a read through. Thank Celestia for editors and Google Docs.